The Least of These
by FeverentMaim
Summary: Mortality is not. (Pre-game)
1. Chapter 1

Arngeir met the Ivarstead trader as rarely as old men ever ate their fill. Necessity only brought Arngeir to the coffer once a few days, or perhaps a few weeks, if the offerings had been plenty. By that time, the trader's burlap sack would have been frozen, preserving its contents of freshly crisp vegetables and tender meats.

The first time Arngeir ever met him - Klimmek, he believed was his name - he was still a fairly young man. A new face, a fresher set of bones, taking up what his predecessor could no longer do.

Yet Arngeir hardly sensed the piety of any other who had the fortune of meeting a Greybeard. At his sight, the trader merely nodded in salute, and when Arngeir had turned, boots faded into the frost bitten whistles of the wind, trekking back through the snow without a word.

That is how he saw him always, the few times they met. A little nod. A few moments of silence. And then he would be again the ghost that came and went.

Pilgrims meeting him at the chest would be flushed with reverence, their voices so giddy that the insides of his ears would tremble. Arngeir wondered, in his peculiar calm, if Klimmek was at all a man of faith.

* * *

Though the Greybeards could certainly eat without certain foods, it was simply wise to keep an even stock. Food and drink would not spoil that way, being left untouched. It also kept cooking from becoming a frivolously complex task.

Gingerly, Arngeir walked out onto the patterned stone, grand and long as they were shallow, hidden deviously underneath the snow. His youth having long left his mortal body, Arngeir had only the hardiness of his Nord blood to steady his legs as he tread the steps slowly, white flakes dusting his sandals as he gently kicked through the colorless specks of ice.

He heard the creaking of the metal hinges, turning the corner just as Klimmek had laid his offerings with the other gifts left by visitors. He bowed his head respectfully, standing patiently as Arngeir retrieved what was needed in a small sack of his own.

When the bag was then full of goods, he did not turn away from Klimmek; he scanned the man meticulously, noting the clothes he wore, the wrinkles and thick Nord bone beginning to protrude from his face.

"I hope you are well, trader." Arngeir said calmly, as he closed the coffer without the clang of steel and wood. The sudden breadth in his words took Kimmlick by surprise, gazing at the preist as if he had broken some sort of vow.

"How do you mean, Greybeard?" he asked, his voice husky from the bitterness of the cold.

"You do not seem well-rested."

Growing a slight smile, Klimmek breathed out a deep, wistful sigh, nodding dolefully in agreement. "I am older." He said. "My knees have begun to give way. I do not know how many more times I can climb the Throat."

Many carry-men had passed through his life, one after the other, but the confession nontheless took Arngeir by surprise. He still saw that young man, yesterday waiting patiently in the gust without an utter of disruption. "So the people of Ivarstead must soon choose another?" Arngeir said, the grace in his speech making it more a statement than a question.

Klimmek looked out from the mountain ledge into the world beyond, the many cities and towns all but pinpricks in the distance. "Yes, but I would not know when. Ivarstead has not been immune to the war."

For a moment, Arngeir's mind trailed into the faint hills of the Eastmarch, understanding the hint of unease that was woven in Klimmek's words. "Then shall I ask you a question, trader, should I not have the chance again?"

Without answer, Klimmek looked away from his daze and met the priest's eyes in expectation. Arngeir turned to the sky for a brief moment, carefully crafting his words. The ferocity of the wind had slowed to nothing but a breeze, letting docile flakes fall to their place in the snow. A few landed gently in his eyelashes, only to break and drop away as he lowered his head with a single blink. "What solace do you find when you journey the Throat, trader?" He asked, without hurry.

There was hardly the hesitation in Klimmek's eyes as Arngeir had expected, suddenly bright and focused on only what laid behind them. In that moment, Arngeir realized the trader was a thinking man; his mind strung into the spirit that gifted motive and reason, of what the Gods had made so alive and immortal.

It was a unique experience, to have one who did not long for but instead endeared all of what he did not entirely understand. "It is nature." Klimmek replied with light contentment. "It is the gift of Kyne, as we all are."

Arngeir wished more of man and mer were to share in that same mind.


	2. Chapter 2

The master did not always call the Greybeards to the peak. Among their duties was to seek wisdom, of which he gave without protest, calm and curled like a cat in slumber as he turned a listening ear. In a way the old men were like brothers to the great beast, regardless of the pride in blood shared by Paarthurnax and his breed.

Arngeir thought he had perhaps sought him more than any other in the dragon's everlasting lifetime. Even now, as the his very marrow ached, Arngeir remained brimming with curiosity, new questions arising as he woke from his dreams and saw Nirn itself shifting by the duress of time. That it was not shared by his fellow priests was perhaps why he was their emissary.

He nearly chuckled aloud at the epiphany, before he felt the viciousness returning to the winds. Arngeir shouted forcefully to the sky, the worst of the drought once more dispersing at his command. He growled with a deep huff, resisting the urge to curse the violent wisp responsible under his breath.

As he reached the flat surface of the peak, he was met by the sight of his teacher and friend laying near the edge, large eyes gazing across the land with a keenness Arngeir could not ever have imagined. A layer of white was draped along his snout and the leather of his wings, a sign he had not moved the slightest of his tremendous body for perhaps the entirety of a day. With light strides, Arngeir walked around to find where he faced, following his direction to a familiar shadow of a fortress, crowned by a massive, gabled tower. He sighed, concern forming into a frown on his cracked lips.

Gulps of snow fell abruptly like an avalanche in parts, landing at Arngeir's feet when Paarthurnax turned his head with striking speed. Arngeir dipped his head in a short apology, the grey glaze of the serpent's eyes unsuppressive of his evident surprise. " _I did not mean to startle you, master._ " He spoke in Dovahzul.

Paarthurnax's mouth curved mildly up his jaw, creating the closest imitation of a smile a dragon's stiff, weighted skin could make. " _You've lost the hunter's finesse in your old age, Arngeir._ " he replied jokingly, and roared within his throat alongside Angeir's momentary burst of laughter.

The man's features retreated into a stoic expression, head shaking somberly over recent memory. " _It seems I am not the only one._ "

" _You speak of Klimmek_ " Paathurnax said heavily, the large bones in his neck creaking as he veered back over the outlook. " _I fear he may have to bear the burden for longer than he should_."

" _So he has said._ " Aimlessly, the priest peered at the remnants of Paarthurnax's covering, clumped in uneven rolls on otherwise smooth frost. He bent down, lightly brushing a mass into his hand, and throwing it over the cliff before it began soak his gloves. The snow smattered into a misty shape that fluxed like a flock of birds, the flakes somehow remaining bound together for however a brief instant.

The dragon swung his head around as if he was a great owl, watching the flurry be blown away by the gust. " _But that is not the only reason you come._ "

" _Klimmek._ " Arngier said assuredly. " _I asked of him about the Throat, and what he had to say... Has left me to ponder_."

Cartilage and muscle rustled frozen stone. A giant tail rolled out lazily, twitching to and fro so that Paarthurnax could rise on his hind legs without falling.

Though time had dulled a young life spent cautious of predators, never had Arngeir been fully ridden of the instinct. He recessively felt the need to step away from the ancient lizard, his head alone rivaling even the tallest of Skyrim's hardy pines. " _Ponder on the anarchy of mortals? On their frailty of devotion?_ " The elder asked, words rendered orotund. Arngeir said nothing in return, the fabric of his hood folding as he casted his glance from the mountain vista.

Paarthurnax was too far above him to see, but by the slight movement he knew the Greybeard's eyes were upon him. " _Of all that has laid hand in this time, Arngeir, mortals are the least cursed._ "

Arngeir lifted his head, looking up towards Paarthurnax abruptly with an incredulous face. If he were a lesser creature, the remark would have been taken as blasphemy against the gods. Yet such being said by a child of Akatosh, intrigue nudged at the corners of his intellect.

His teacher saw he had struck an adamant audience, and his inflection softened as he explained. " _The Aedra know nothing of life or death. For them, it is eternity... or nothing at all._ "

Arngeir was suddenly reminded of the sky above them. The Throat held a marvelous blessing of the stars, a view of the Signs unseen in any other lands upon Tamriel, and perhaps all of Nirn. They glimmered through the clouds like bright torches against the night, lucid waves of colors circling slowly around a center point. That was where life was said to have been given, the breath of Kynareth forever marked in the heavens.

" _The Aedra exist in Aetherius at a price._ " Paarthurnax drawled. " _And that price is what most of your kind value far too much. That discarding it even by the blessing of the Divines is inconceivable._ "

Tranquility seemed to drift like a blanket upon the peak, gracefully falling with the supple dance of the snow. Arngeir recognized he was purely in meditation, and despite the sore spasm in his neck, he did not look away from the immemorial sight. " _And what would that be?_ "

"Mortality." He answered gravelly in Arngeir's tongue. "The many gifts of mortality."


End file.
